The Evolution of John Negan
by Lizziekat15
Summary: Not satisfied with what I've gleaned from fansites as Negan's backstory, I've created my own version.
1. Chapter 1

The Evolution of John Negan

Chapter One

John sighed and ran his hands over his face tiredly. He snuck a look at his watch for what must have been the tenth time in twenty minutes. He'd told Rita he wouldn't be home late, and he'd meant it. But in his business, when the big guys asked you out to discuss a deal with them you had to go. And you couldn't leave early, or you didn't get that deal. And then you didn't get other deals. And before you knew it your construction business went bankrupt. All because you didn't play by the rules with the big guys. And playing by the rules meant going out to strip bars they owned, getting shithoused and having strippers give you lap dances til two in the morning. No excuses, or you were a pussy. You couldn't be a pussy and get the building contracts.

John sighed again and took a long drag on his cigarette. Rita understood how things were-that's one of the many reasons he loved her. She didn't pitch a fit when he came in late smelling of liquor and cigarettes and stale perfume. She'd grown up in the same world he had, and she understood the rules of the game.

He shifted uneasily in his seat and shook his head as a stripper approached him with a beer. He'd called Rita late in the afternoon and explained that he couldn't get out of this particular meeting and as always she'd been sweet and understanding. Which made him feel like even more of a pussy for not standing up for himself and telling these guys he had to get home early-because after a series of miscarriages, Rita had for the first time gotten past the first trimester and that was due to bedrest per doctors orders. That was also due in part to John having changed his schedule around so he could be home at a decent time in the evening instead of being gone like tonight until two or three in the morning. Rita's sister or mother or friends stayed with her during the day because they knew he would be home in the evenings to make sure she stayed in the bed except for trips to the bathroom.

He sat up a bit as Gino made his way over to where he sat. "So everything good, right?" Gino rasped as he plopped his fat ass down in the chair next to John. John nodded silently, hoping Gino would say they were calling it a night and then he could finally go home to clean up and slide into bed next to his pregnant wife and fall asleep with his arms around her. "Your old lady expecting right?" Gino asked and John started at the question. In all the time he'd known these guys, none of them had ever asked him any personal questions – nothing. It was all business with these guys-and he'd appreciated that.

John nodded. "Yeah, it's early yet but so far so good," he yelled over the noise of the music.

Gino nodded. "Good, family is everything. Children are a blessing-at least when they're little," Gino chuckled and smiled wryly. "Go home to your wife. I'll be in touch," and he waved John off. John nodded and stood quickly and strode out to the parking lot hoping Gino wouldn't change his mind and call him back.

As he pulled out of the parking lot, he reached for his cellphone and punched the autodial to Rita's cell. He normally wouldn't have called and woken her up, but he wanted to hear her voice. He was exhausted from the hours sitting in that damn club, headachey from the loud music and the cigarette smoke that had hung in a cloud all throughout the room. His stomach growled, reminding him he hadn't eaten since lunch and had had too many drinks with an empty stomach. He sighed as he listened to the ringing over the line and hung up. Maybe she was sleeping too deeply to hear the phone-but that didn't feel right. Rita had always had an uncanny knack of sensing when he would call and would somehow wake up out of a dead sleep to grab the phone-usually on the first ring.

John opened his windows to let in some fresh air. It was early spring, so the nights were still cold but that scent of spring was in the air-the scent of grass finally after all the months of snow. Spring was his favorite time of the year-the air seemed full of promise. He had met Rita in the spring, they'd married a year later in the spring. It had always seemed a lucky season for him. But the closer he drew toward home he felt the a tiny flame of anxiety spark inside him-he had a sudden and overwhelming urge that he had to be home now.

As John finally pulled onto the street where Rita and he had their apartment he slowed down to stare silently at the cluster of police cars in front of their brownstone. John took a deep breath-they had some elderly neighbors, one must have had a heart attack or something. He jerked the car over to the curb and slammed it into park and half stumbled toward the growing number of gawkers and police standing outside the brownstone. As he came closer, he saw a neighbor of theirs turn and point toward him. The cop with him turned to look at John and in that moment he felt the world fall away from him.

Chapter 2

John rubbed his hands over his face wearily for what he believed should be about the hundredth time and sighed. He had been sitting in the police interrogation room for hours now-he understood that the police had their job to do but he was beyond exhausted and had yet to get a full account of just what had happened to Rita and her mother other than they had been found dead in bed just a few hours or so before he'd arrived. Apparently Rita's sister Ellen had gone over to the apartment when no one had answered the phone. She'd found Rita and their mother dead in the bed-Rita's mother Helen had been staying with Rita that night while John was out on business.

John choked back a sob at that thought. Out on business at a strip joint while somebody was murdering his wife and mother in law. Not just his wife, though, his pregnant wife. The pregnancy they had long hoped for and that seemed would see the delivery of a healthy baby at long last.

John started as the door swung open and yet another detective entered the room. The man was middle aged and had a hangdog look to him that John took an instant dislike to. The man nodded to John and motioned for him to follow.

"You can go for now, Mr. Negan. We'll be in touch if we need more information from you. We ask that you stay away from your apartment as it is an ongoing crime scene and we still have a team working the site," the man mumbled in a monotone that made John's hackles go up. Maybe this man saw this type of shit everyday, but this wasn't an every day occurrence to John and he would've appreciated the man showing at least a bit of sympathy.

"When is somebody going to tell me what the hell happened?" John snapped back, refusing to take a step forward until he got some kind of answer.

The detective gazed at John and shook his head. "That's why the team is still at your apartment sir. Gathering evidence." He turned to walk out of the room and John cleared his throat.

"Not good enough goddammit. I want something. Did somebody shoot my wife and mother in law? Stab them? What the fuck happened to them? All I've been told is they're dead," he snarled.

The detective turned to look at John again, quietly searching his face with a look on his face that made John's heart clench.

"They were beaten to death with a baseball bat, sir," the detective said quietly. "That's all we know for now-the bat was left at the scene. On purpose it would seem. And the oddest thing? It was wrapped in barbed wire." He watched John's face closely and saw a brief flash of recognition pass over his features before a mask came down concealing his thoughts and emotions. The detective grunted, and tucked that away for the morning's update on the investigation. This man might not have killed his wife, but the detective would bet his pension that John Negan had a good idea who had.

Chapter 3

"John, you have to get some rest," Ellen pleaded.

John stopped his frantic pacing and shot her a glare. She noted how bloodshot his eyes were. He was disheveled, unkempt-nothing at all like the neat and fastidiously clean man she'd known all these years. A month since "it" had happened and he didn't appear to be any closer to acceptance of what had happened than he had been that first night. Ellen closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Her therapist had told her to take deep breaths to try to breathe through the moments when her despair and grief threatened to overwhelm her.

"I won't fucking rest until I make whoever did this pay for it," John roared. Ellen flinched at the ferocity in his voice. He had always been an emotional man-something her sister had treasured about him. No strong, silent man for her sister. And now here he was, all his boundless energy and enthusiasm and lust for life turned into escalating episodes of manic activity, violent outbursts and a single minded certainty that he was going to make whoever had committed this horrific act of violence on their family pay back in spades for their actions.

"John, you can't go on like this," Ellen pleaded again. "You have to rest. You can't possibly expect to be of use to yourself or anyone else if you continue on this way," Ellen continued softly.

John turned away from her and ran his hands tiredly over his face. "I can't sleep Ellen. Every time I close my eyes, all I can see….all I see is…." And his voice choked off in a heartwrenching sob. He dropped to his knees suddenly and throwing his head back made a sound that made the hair on the back of Ellen's neck stand up. Not exactly a scream, not an actual howl but a sound of such absolute and total grief and heartbreak that Ellen felt her heart break all over again. It seemed to her that her heart shattered on a daily basis now, some days almost hourly. She couldn't begin to fathom how deep a chasm her sister's loss had left in John's soul if hers ached this badly.

Shaking her head to push back the direction these thoughts were taking her, she stood and crossed to where John knelt on the floor. He was leaning over now, arms wrapped around himself, his forehead touching the floor. Rocking as he moaned and sobbed, whispering her sister's name brokenly.

Kneeling beside him, Ellen tentatively laid her hand on John's back. "Come on John. Let's get some food into you. You need to eat, and you need to rest. You need your wits about you if you're determined to catch whoever did this."

The rocking and sobbing stopped suddenly. John sat up and blinked at Ellen. Then he smiled, and Ellen shrank away from it. "You're right. I need to pay attention, I need to be sharp and work on a plan. Otherwise whoever did this got what they wanted-me, distracted and vulnerable. I've got to be exactly what they won't expect-cold, calculating and always one step ahead." His gaze sharpened and for the first time in a month Ellen felt that her brother in law was fully present mentally and physically. Then he smiled again, and she shrank back a bit further. "Thanks Ellen. Thanks for putting up with me this last month while I've been wallowing selfishly in my own grief. I lost my wife, but you. You lost your mother and your sister. And I haven't been here for you at all. And for that I do apologize." He sighed pensively and then slowly stood and offered a hand to Ellen. "Things will be different from now on, I promise. And God help anyone who gets in my way."

Ellen stood beside John and gazed up at him and knew that the man her sister had fallen in love with and that she and her family had loved for years now was gone just as surely as her sister was. Ellen felt a chill run up her spine as John gazed at her and she felt a panicked urge to get him out of her house and away from her as quickly as possible. As if sensing her panic and fear John nodded once and turned to stride toward the door. Turning as he grasped the doorknob, John smiled and for a minute Ellen recognized the man she'd known all these years. Then his smile widened and she felt her stomach drop. "Goodbye Ellen. I don't imagine we'll ever see each other again. It would be too painful for both of us. I wish you and your family only the best." And with that John opened the door, stepped out and closed it behind him. Ellen released a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding, then hurried to bolt the door after her brother in law.

Chapter 4

John stood slumped over the body lying on the floor in front of him. His breath came in gasps as if he'd been running a marathon. His right hand loosely gripped a bat-a bat wrapped in barbed wire. He had decided weeks ago that if he was going take his revenge for the savage, brutal murder of his wife and mother-in-law, well then he was going to give the perpetrators a taste of their own medicine.

He'd hounded the cops and then the coroner to tell him the type of bat that had been used. Then he'd bought one, along with some barbed wire and had spent an entire day deciding just how to wrap the bat up to inflict the most damage when it came into contact with flesh. He'd also contacted a business acquaintance who owed him a favor and availed himself of the man's cold storage for the various meats he sold to the area butchers.

John had then spent days experimenting with the bat against the various meat carcasses hanging in the storage-only the ones his friend had said he was planning to scrap for whatever reasons. He hadn't realized how the impact of the bat against dead meat would affect his aim for the next swing, nor the ache his arm and shoulder would feel later that day and into the next.

Still, he persevered. He had all but given over his business to his friend and partner, never voicing out loud that he was never coming back to work. But they both knew that he had gone down the rabbit hole and his journey was not going to end well. So he'd gone through the legal motions necessary for his friend to run things and for him to walk away from it all.

As for the house-well he'd contacted some professional cleaners he was referred to, but even after the bedroom had been made spotless again he couldn't stay there. Everywhere he looked was the reminder of his life with his beloved wife-he couldn't even go near the nursery that they'd started decorating once Rita had progressed to the stage of pregnancy where they weren't worried about miscarriage. John had finally sublet the apartment to one of Rita's many cousins who apparently had no qualms about sleeping in the very bedroom his cousin had been murdered in.

He'd taken to staying in various cheap motels in and around the city-the type of places you paid cash and nobody asked questions. He rarely stayed more than a night or two, always on the lookout for anyone following him. He knew whoever had killed Rita was going to be looking for him to finish what they'd started-and he intended on taking as many of those bastards with him as he could. He'd been digging about here and there, spoken to Gino and his men a few times and had come away with the feeling that Gino knew more than he let on. He'd begun to believe in fact that Gino had something to do with his wife's murder-but couldn't figure out why he hadn't been killed. If they'd wanted him dead, they could've done that a hundred different times so it didn't make sense how things had played out. He spent hours every night staring at different water stained ceilings in shitty motels trying to make a clear picture of the puzzle pieces in his mind.

A week ago the puzzle pieces had finally snapped into place and John knew who had killed his wife and why. He'd then begun to track the murderers and kept track of who they spoke to and who they contacted. And then he'd begun to take his revenge on them.

The man lying on the floor in front of him was the first step up the ladder to reach the person who had actually ordered the hit on him. He had expected to feel something-rage, remorse, jubilation, vindication. Something. Instead he just felt tired. His arm hurt, his face and clothes were sticky with the blood spray resulting from bashing somebody's head in with a wire wrapped bat. He sighed and straightened slowly.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 5

John lay back on the lumpy bed in the cheap motel room he'd rented for the night. He'd showered and scrubbed the blood and detritus off himself as soon as he'd gotten in the room. He'd stopped at a fast food place and gotten something to quiet the rumbling of his stomach before he'd pulled in and bought a room for the night on the outskirts of the city. The kind of place where you weren't asked any questions no matter how much blood and brain matter you appeared to be covered in. And if the desk clerk had even thought of asking any questions, the stare John had given him had shut that shit right down.

Now, after the lukewarm shower and the greasy, tasteless burger and fries he flipped aimlessly through the basic cable channels looking for something he could zone out on for a few hours. He caught a glimpse of something on the History channel and flipped back just in time to realize it was a documentary on Jim Jones and The People's Temple and that godawful mass suicide in that jungle. What year had that been again? And how many people had been killed drinking that fucking Kool Aid?

He sat up a bit and turned the sound up. He remembered being fascinated when he'd first heard the story about the cult and it's leader. He couldn't wrap his head around the idea of one man convincing all those people-over 900 right?-to join him in some jungle with no running water, no electricity, hell no shelter for any of them to live in. Women and children and old folks all trying to clear the land and build a life for themselves -most of them completely out of their elements and ill equipped to withstand the heat and humidity and other conditions living in a jungle would entail.

As he watched, his mouth hanging slightly open, he listened in growing amazement at Jim Jones decades of deceit and unabashed thievery of politicians, church members, the poor-everyone who had met him in his early years was full of praise of his intelligence, charm, good looks. He had organized funds and programs to integrate schools, assist the poor and downtrodden. And as he grew bolder and more outrageous in his claims and demands-no one really resisted him or protested about his proposals. He'd founded his church-his cult-and proclaimed himself God on numerous occasions and still his flock grew. What was it that made people so willing to turn everything over to one man? Their money, their families, their ambition went into pleasing Jim Jones and praising him as God's messenger or even God himself.

The program ended and John blinked as if coming out of a daze. Glancing at his watch he realized it was after midnight. Not that he had any important appointments tomorrow, but he hadn't been that immersed in any tv program in years-other than things like the Super Bowl or World Series-shit like that. Rita had been the documentary watcher, trying to get him to sit with her while she watched nature programs or history series about gunfighters or the Nazis. He had never been able to sit still long enough to watch with her for any real length of time. But this guy-this guy had some balls. This guy had conned hundreds of people into moving into a shithole in the jungle and then talked the majority of them into drinking poison-as well as making their kids and wives and parents drink it too. What the fuck?

He clicked the tv off, got up and took a piss, washed his hands and brushed his teeth and then laid down in bed thinking he'd toss and turn like he'd been doing for months now. Instead he fell asleep within minutes and spent the night dreaming about Jim Jones.


End file.
